For Immediate Release
Contact: Chad Colby: Chad.Colby@greatminds.org
Thursday, July 9, 2020—In an unprecedented effort to prevent summer learning loss, Louisiana Public Broadcasting is airing 60 lessons on Eureka Math® from Great Minds, starting this week, for Grades K–5 statewide. In addition, PBS affiliate WCNY-TV in Syracuse, N.Y., partnered with Great Minds to make 172 video lessons on math, English language arts, and science available to all 330 PBS stations across the country.
“Great Minds is a public benefit corporation with the formal mission of bringing exemplary education to all students, whether they lack technology at home, during a health crisis or through the regular school year,” said Sydney Norton, chief marketing officer. “We applaud our partners at the Louisiana Department of Education, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, WCNY-TV, the Syracuse City School District, and others who see public television as a powerful force for education equity. Working together, we’re reaching many more students with high quality lessons than we could individually.”
Louisiana is a leading state in evaluating and providing high quality curricula to students. The partnership between Great Minds and Louisiana is resulting in the airing of Eureka Math lessons July 6 through July 31 on a regular daily schedule. For added accessibility, the lessons will have audio descriptions and closed captioning. The Louisiana lessons also will be available on demand at greatminds.org.
Similarly concerned with continuous learning, soon after schools closed in the spring, WCNY-TV and the Syracuse City School District created the TV Classroom Network to broadcast Knowledge on the Go™ lessons from Great Minds and other educational content to students in Syracuse and the surrounding 19 counties. Upon request from other PBS stations, WCNY-TV and Great Minds put the lessons in a 30-minute PBS format and uploaded 172 lessons on Eureka Math®, Wit & Wisdom® (English language arts), and PhD Science® on a central platform for all public television stations nationwide to access and air if they like.
“WCNY is pleased to partner with Great Minds to make these lessons available to students and teachers through PBS member stations,” said Mitch Gelman, president and CEO of WCNY. “Education is at the core of what we do, and Great Minds offers a range of valuable lessons that we are proud to include in our TV Classroom Network curriculum and programming.”
PBS provides a significant amount of educational programming during regular circumstances. It has increased its efforts to help students and families during school closures and amid pandemic- and summer-related learning loss. Public television reaches the millions of students around the country without technology or internet access at home.
Continuing learning wherever students are, Great Minds will maintains its full suite of 1,315 Knowledge on the Go lessons for free on greatminds.org through Aug. 31 for teachers, students, and parents to use over the summer.
For information about obtaining access to broadcast the video lessons, please contact Chad Colby, Chad.Colby@greatminds.org.
The next iteration of distance learning curricula from Great Minds is Great Minds in Sync™, a new collection of digital resources and print lessons for fall learning. The suite of materials will enable students and teachers to continue the high quality instruction they experienced with Knowledge on the Go. Great Minds in Sync will be available July 30.
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About Great Minds: Great Minds PBC is a public benefit corporation and a subsidiary of Great Minds, a nonprofit corporation. Great Minds provides exemplary curricula to schools and districts nationwide, inspiring joy in teaching and learning. Great Minds is the only curriculum creator to have earned three Tier 1 ratings, the highest possible, from the Louisiana Department of Education. Curricula earning the Tier 1 ratings were Wit & Wisdom®, Eureka Math®, and PhD Science®. Eureka Math and Wit & Wisdom both earned top scores from independent nonprofit reviewer EdReports.org. Geodes®, a library of beautifully illustrated, content-rich books with phonics practice for emerging readers, developed in collaboration with Wilson Language Training, is the latest offering to delight teachers and students. Learn more at greatminds.org.
